I have noticed as well that the more I venture into higher levels ( my ranger is 42 ) I find more buggy quests and more graphical bugs in general.

I hit 52 last night, and am seeing fairly regular graphic bugs. Haven't encountered many quest bugs, but there are certainly a few.

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Theres definitely a balance issue regarding underwater combat.

I'm not really a fan of underwater combat at all. Either I don't know what I'm doing or the mobs are way overpowered because water battles seem to take forever and I die far more often than I do on land. That said, taking down a giant shark with a group of 30 people last night was pretty fun.

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Maybe its just me but does the economy/cash flow seem really out of whack. Im having difficulties trying to amass a couple of gold. My crafting has been put on hold because I just dont have the money to invest in it. Considering the time that went into this games development, why do things seem so out of balance?

I can't speak to this too well (haven't had much experience with other MMO's), but it does seem to take a really long time to collect $$. I just figured that was par for the course, but it sounds like things are a bit unbalanced. I haven't really spent much time crafting though...I don't have the patience for it.

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Oh one last thing, screw whoever decided to make a game that has great exploration incentives only to put frikkin jump puzzles all over the place! GAWD I hate jump puzzles. Then once you get through all of the frustration, you get your reward, yay! More gear that doesnt work for my class! I know, Ill sell it for 35 copper!

It's funny, I know the rewards will never be that great for getting 100% in a zone, but I can't help but want to finish them off anyways.

40 mins on a boss fight at level 75 last night. I only died twice but it took that long because the boss fight was clearly designed for duo and a less squishy class. I basically had to stop an infinite number of healers coming in to heal the boss while still doing damage to a boss that can one shot me if I'm not careful. Conceptually a neat fight but not balanced for solo or my class. Oh yeah the 4 NPCs that were supposed to help me were dead the whole time, literally died 5 seconds after the fight started.

40 mins on a boss fight at level 75 last night. I only died twice but it took that long because the boss fight was clearly designed for duo and a less squishy class. I basically had to stop an infinite number of healers coming in to heal the boss while still doing damage to a boss that can one shot me if I'm not careful. Conceptually a neat fight but not balanced for solo or my class. Oh yeah the 4 NPCs that were supposed to help me were dead the whole time, literally died 5 seconds after the fight started.

I think this is a problem that permeates throughout the game. It gets worse at higher levels because there was even less time testing/fixing those. It's clear they wanted to give players more of a challenge in the personal story quests, but they also clearly did not spend enough time balancing for different possibilities and permutations. What's odd is that they deliberately clamped/fixed the levels so deliberately you'd have thought they had it figured out. But then you start playing and as mentioned, all your helper NPCs die in 5 seconds and you are left solo fighting 10+ mobs of your same level plus a boss. I had one fight in the 30s I think where I ended up dying so many times that all of my equipment broke and I was left fighting in my boxers. It took a while but I did manage to kill the last boss and mob while "downed" - it was actually pretty hilarious, except for the repair costs.

It kind of goes back to my post before. In all honesty, I think they should never have gone down the road with the "personal story" at all. This is not to say I don't like what they did or that the story is poor, but it's still a "feature" that's really best left for a (different) single player or small group game, and ultimately I believe they diverted too many resources getting it all put together (plus testing) that other things (like WvW) did not get the attention they would have benefitted from. The personal story also is the one place they suffer from conventional MMO-itis. No matter what is happening in the personal story, it's like it occurs in an alternate universe; you never see the effects in the "real" world, in spite of the very major things that are happening in your storyline. Personally I always find this kind of thing distracting and interestingly I think they dealt with it better in Guild Wars 1. And let's face it, they simply didn't have the production values to compete with something like SWTOR, so really why bother? I would have loved to see them devote the energy into blending the storylines into the main world, as there are some really cool things that might have come about from making some of the big personal story events into large scale group/world events.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I'm thinking the undead attack on Lion's Arch, for instance. Could have been a spectacular event but instead is contained into the personal story.

Btw, I agree that the personal stories quest need to adjusted. I'm thinking that Anet assumed most people would be grouping or playing a tank class, some of those mobs hit entirely too hard

It's odd how difficult the story missions can be. I've died more in those missions than anywhere else. Some of them are just wonky hard, with what seems like a buggy amount of spawned enemies.

I had some issues with the story missions until I figured that I can't go toe to toe with multiple tough mobs. I was able to kite them from ranged and abuse terrain to get through it (guess my old Hunter skills came in useful). Felt like I was cheesing the fight, but I didn't care too much. This is at 30-40. Not sure how it is at higher levels.

Btw, I agree that the personal stories quest need to adjusted. I'm thinking that Anet assumed most people would be grouping or playing a tank class, some of those mobs hit entirely too hard

It's odd how difficult the story missions can be. I've died more in those missions than anywhere else. Some of them are just wonky hard, with what seems like a buggy amount of spawned enemies.

I had some issues with the story missions until I figured that I can't go toe to toe with multiple tough mobs. I was able to kite them from ranged and abuse terrain to get through it (guess my old Hunter skills came in useful). Felt like I was cheesing the fight, but I didn't care too much. This is at 30-40. Not sure how it is at higher levels.

It all depends how lucky you are and somewhat on the class. I solod every personal story mission up to 77 so far but last night I was helping out someone at level 50 who is playing the same class but different race/story line. His mission was much harder than anything I had faced.

Hey everyone, sorry to not post about this sooner, the last few days have been a little hectic and I wanted to verify a couple things first about the issues we’ve been seeing with the queues before posting anything.As many of you know, it is possible for someone to queue up for a map after you and get in first. We’re trying to get that fixed as soon as possible but unfortunately we still need a bit more time to solve the problem. We will definitely keep you updated when there is any news on our progress. I have been checking the queue sizes and wait times for each matchup, and there are a couple interesting things I’ve observed so far that may help reduce queue times for some of you.Worlds at the top of the rankings can have queues that reach multiple hours (particularly for the Eternal Battlegrounds map), but most of the worlds in the bottom half of the ranking quite frequently have open spots in at least a few maps, and the lower ranked the server is, the more likely it is that there are spots available. I’ll be posting the up to date world rankings shortly.When there are queues for every map, the wait time for borderland maps tends to be shorter. Enemy team borderlands tend to have the smallest queues for just about every team so you may want to try entering those maps first before attempting to queue for the Eternal Battlegrounds. If you are just entering the queue for the battlegrounds and not checking the borderlands maps first to see if they have space open, you could be missing out on playing in the Borderlands while you wait for a spot to open up for you in the Battlegrounds. That being said, while we still have worlds that consistently have open spots for more players, it would be fantastic if some players out there could help us spread the WvW population out a bit so we don’t have a few heavily stacked populations facing large queues on some worlds while many other worlds still have room to support people. While I know this isn’t what most of you wanted to hear, I also want all of you to know that we are still investigating numerous other options we can take to help resolve some of these ongoing queue issues and we’ve been discussing them internally every day to see what would provide everyone with the best long term solution, but we wont have anything ready on that front for quite a while. Ideally, we would see some people move from worlds with extreme queue times to worlds that need additional people and start building up active wvw communities there as well. Having more worlds with heavily active populations in WvW will be a very good thing for the long term health of the game, and spreading out the population will help reduce the queue times on the worlds with the longest queues. While queues do indeed suck, the fact that they are this bad is because so many of you are trying to play and that is actually one of the best possible problems we can have at this point. It may sound silly, but it means that there are quite a few of you out there are enjoying the game and we’re thrilled that so many of you are out there trying to fight for your world. We will do our best to make sure you can.Finally, I would like to ask everyone to post any additional queue comments to this thread only from now on and refrain from creating additional threads about it.Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

I still can't understand why game developers think they have to have underwater content in games like this. I guess they take it as a challenge "Oh yeah? Well we will finally implement underwater content that is actually enjoyable!" but, it always falls flat on its face. GW2 is even worse than most in that mobs are tougher and your DPS is lower. Yeah, fun fun! (however I do think the exp from underwater mobs is higher, but not 100% sure). Its like they refuse to look at it objectively.

If I was at a MMO developers design meeting and said something like "Hey, I got an idea. Lets develop an area where moving around is clunky and awkward, especially for melee classes. Also, lets slow the players down a lot, lower their DPS, lower their survive-ability, and muffle the game sounds. Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun right guys!!??". You would think they would be like "Uh, that does not sound very fun at all, why waste time designing an area like that?". Then just say, "It's underwater guys!" and they would be like "Oh f*** yeah! Got to have underwater content!!!"

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others? I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others? I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

I actually like the underwater areas a lot, as does my gf. Lovely places and the mobs arent that hard

Ditto, I enjoy it too. I really liked my personal story mission at around level 70 which was completely underwater. I also love seeing some of the unique animals down there.

I don't have any issues with the controls. Remember you can dodge underwater too. I wonder if a lot of people have trouble with underwater combat because underwater gear is the last thing on their list to upgrade.

I like it as well - a whole lot. I play Rangers and Thieves; so maybe it is class depedant. That being said, I still wouldn't be opposed to them lowering the amount of mobs - as it feels like there are too many fights underwater.

Logged

LD

"Let your enemies fear, for a harlequin of the Laughing God dances at your side."

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others? I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

Well, I don't care what EQ1 did, but this is very well implemented, and anecdotally shown here, many people seem to like it. In game I always see a ton of people in underwater areas as well, so I think its just you, and not a vast majority of players.

While EQ1 underwater was awkward (actually on land controls were awkward too), I think it added a great sense of immersion. When I was taking the boat from Butcherblock to Freeport, I knew there was a vast ocean below me and not just a 2D surface. Discovering some of the underwater secret access routes was fun. There was a sense of urgency when your underwater breath spell was about to run out that I enjoyed.

I think having 2D water makes the world seem less believable. That is probably one of the reason why GW2 devs chose to include it. I'm sure the underwater content can use a little tweaking but so can a lot of the land areas (level 75-80 zones for example, I can't walk an inch without running into several aggro).

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others? I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

Well, I don't care what EQ1 did, but this is very well implemented, and anecdotally shown here, many people seem to like it. In game I always see a ton of people in underwater areas as well, so I think its just you, and not a vast majority of players.

Uh, it is implemented the same way it has in just about every other MMO to date. Slower movement speedMuffled sounds (with some bubble and "swish" sounds thrown in)Reduced draw distanceColor palette tinted (blue mainly)Combat issue (difficulties attacking due to z axis, AE usage, etc)

So far, based on my experience, I almost always see veteran and/or event mobs in the water up and stay up for hours at a time with noone wanting to hang around to kill them (prime example: that one out from fort trinity. It was up for hours upon hours this past weekend. Plenty of people around doing land-based events/bosses yet no one seemed to want to go kill it).

Whats funny is in every MMO that implements underwater content, there are folks saying the same things you are, yet within a very short time, the underwater content is devoid of players. I suspect time will prove me right yet again.

Have a lot of other MMOs had a separate set of weapons/skills for underwater combat? I haven't played any MMOs with water combat prior to this (well, except for EQ1 but I never touched that part), but for me that's one of the best parts about GW2's underwater stuff.

Did WoW ever have underwater combat? I dont think so. Neither did Warhammer, Vanguard, SWTOR (That I know of) The Secret World or Conan, or any of the other MMO's I played. I havent played EQ1 so I cant comment on that.

I realize you don't like it, Toe, but I think you are exaggerating based on your own feelings.

Quote from: Toe on September 14, 2012, 06:19:15 PM

Quote from: Razgon on September 14, 2012, 05:15:39 PM

Quote from: Toe on September 14, 2012, 03:36:19 PM

Quote from: wonderpug on September 14, 2012, 02:45:45 PM

Maybe some professions are better balanced for underwater than others? I'm only in my low 30s with my thief but I also feel like underwater combat is easier than on land, both for the spear and the harpoon-gun.

For my warrior it is brutal, both using speargun (ranged) or spear (melee). I would say my DPS is 50% lower or more based on how long it takes to kill something my level (and yes my weapons are appropriate level).

I get that some people like it. Maybe it is for those chosen few. But history shows, without a doubt, from Everquest 1 onward, underwater content becomes a barren wasteland very quickly and remains that way for the life of the game. So the vast majority of players obviously prefer to be on dry land. It seems such a waste of resources to develop content that is tossed aside so quickly and completely by the vast majority of players.

Well, I don't care what EQ1 did, but this is very well implemented, and anecdotally shown here, many people seem to like it. In game I always see a ton of people in underwater areas as well, so I think its just you, and not a vast majority of players.

Uh, it is implemented the same way it has in just about every other MMO to date. Slower movement speedMuffled sounds (with some bubble and "swish" sounds thrown in)Reduced draw distanceColor palette tinted (blue mainly)Combat issue (difficulties attacking due to z axis, AE usage, etc)

So far, based on my experience, I almost always see veteran and/or event mobs in the water up and stay up for hours at a time with noone wanting to hang around to kill them (prime example: that one out from fort trinity. It was up for hours upon hours this past weekend. Plenty of people around doing land-based events/bosses yet no one seemed to want to go kill it).

Whats funny is in every MMO that implements underwater content, there are folks saying the same things you are, yet within a very short time, the underwater content is devoid of players. I suspect time will prove me right yet again.

I hate mmorpg underwater combat and exploration in general, but they did a nice job with it in GW2. There are some 3d issues that I've experienced, but overall it's well implemented. I find it relaxing, and a nice alternative to land based combat/exploration. The unique weapon sets and skills make it interesting, with each class having their own flavor of skills. My ranger absolutely kicks ass underwater, with ridiculously powerful skills like a piranha swarm attack. The ranger underwater attack animations are very well done, with one attack animating a shark above him as he charges towards enemies.

My engineer's grenade kit is actually his best attack set underwater, functioning differently than it does on land. It does a ton of damage, and shoots grenades directly towards the target with no arc, and without the need to ground target.

The guardian has cool aquaman like attacks using tridents and spears. Good animations.

The warrior is probably the least interesting underwater of all the classes that I've tried, but he can kick ass too. His attacks just don't have as much personality or creativity behind them. That forward spinning attack just mauls enemies, as does the multi spear attack. His harpoon gun skills are very similar to the rifle, so there's not much of a learning curve there.

I haven't run into anything yet that has required me to be underwater, so if I didn't like it, I could just avoid it all together.

Did WoW ever have underwater combat? I dont think so. Neither did Warhammer, Vanguard, SWTOR (That I know of) The Secret World or Conan, or any of the other MMO's I played. I havent played EQ1 so I cant comment on that.

WoW, EQ1 and EQ2 all had underwater stuff. One of the WoW expansions, in fact, has an entire underwater zone.

I think GW2's is good or bad depending on your class. I love underwater stuff with my ranger because I like the attacks that I have (piranha swarm for the win!). My guardian, on the other hand, seems to have pretty lame underwater attacks and I tend to avoid doing it with that character.

In the Of Swords, Spells, Vistas, and Oveflows section. You should probably consider using "professions" instead of "classes". Also in the 2nd paragraph "Warrior classes can switch between two weapon sets" is a bit confusing. Warriors as well as thief (and I assume all others professions) can switch between two weapon sets. Also in that paragraph, you only get 5 new skills if it is a 2-handed weapon, might should add that for 1-handed weapons/items, it is 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off-hand. One aspect of GW2 I really love and was not mentioned (that I saw anyway) is how the line between melee and ranged classes it not really there in this game as it is in others. i.e. Melee-oriented classes, like warrior, thief, etc can use ranged weapons very effectively unlike just about any MMO out there.

In the Of Swords, Spells, Vistas, and Oveflows section. You should probably consider using "professions" instead of "classes". Also in the 2nd paragraph "Warrior classes can switch between two weapon sets" is a bit confusing. Warriors as well as thief (and I assume all others professions) can switch between two weapon sets. Also in that paragraph, you only get 5 new skills if it is a 2-handed weapon, might should add that for 1-handed weapons/items, it is 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off-hand. One aspect of GW2 I really love and was not mentioned (that I saw anyway) is how the line between melee and ranged classes it not really there in this game as it is in others. i.e. Melee-oriented classes, like warrior, thief, etc can use ranged weapons very effectively unlike just about any MMO out there.

Engineers get less weapons but they have some turret stuff that makes up for it I think. Elementalists cannot switch weapons in combat and have a small list of available weapons/combos, BUT they can switch between 4 element attunements during combat giving them effectively access to 20 weapon skills + 5 more regular skills.

In the Of Swords, Spells, Vistas, and Oveflows section. You should probably consider using "professions" instead of "classes". Also in the 2nd paragraph "Warrior classes can switch between two weapon sets" is a bit confusing. Warriors as well as thief (and I assume all others professions) can switch between two weapon sets. Also in that paragraph, you only get 5 new skills if it is a 2-handed weapon, might should add that for 1-handed weapons/items, it is 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off-hand. One aspect of GW2 I really love and was not mentioned (that I saw anyway) is how the line between melee and ranged classes it not really there in this game as it is in others. i.e. Melee-oriented classes, like warrior, thief, etc can use ranged weapons very effectively unlike just about any MMO out there.

Engineers get less weapons but they have some turret stuff that makes up for it I think. Elementalists cannot switch weapons in combat and have a small list of available weapons/combos, BUT they can switch between 4 element attunements during combat giving them effectively access to 20 weapon skills + 5 more regular skills.

Ah, cool. I just got my elementalist to 2nd level, so was not yet aware that he does not get a weapon swap. I knew the warrior and thief did and pretty sure the ranger and mesmer do. I assumed the guardian did (but not sure).

Just started playing a human engineer last night. Got him up to level 6. Pretty fun game although still a lot that I don't really understand in regards to setting up abilities and dealing with items. Is there a Wanderers guild or something to join?

You don't have to be on Ehmry Bay to be in the guild but can't participate in the World v. World with the guild if you are not. You can also be in multiple guilds, but can only "represent" one at a time. When you "represent" a guild, you are able to communicate in guild chat, have access to the guild bank (depending on rank) and all of your achievements count towards the guild represented.

pug, if you have an acct there already you just have to find someone online to get you in. I think we can send offline invites but I'm not sure. I tried it a couple of times but I don't know if it was successful.

If you no longer have an acct on the site, just create a new one and post your info. If it is inactive, there should be a place to post that you need it reactivated.